Artist Blog: Aino Kannisto

(Posted in May from saved draft)

Aino Kannisto is a Finnish photographer who constructs fictional scenes that she records with her camera. Kannisto, like me, acts acts as the subject in her scenes and doesn't consider them self-portraits in a traditional way, but considers herself a narrator. "My pictures are fantasies, I represent an atmosphere or a mood through fictional persons. Fantasy is a means to speak about emotions." - Kannisto (http://www.women2003.dk/artists.php?id=46)

She and I obviously speak the same language.

Untitled (Trashbin) Aino Kannisto, 1999. C-Print, Diasec, 90 x 115 cm. http://www.m-bochum.de/artist_image.php?aid=66#down.

Kannisto's influences are much like the influences of mine and previously posted artists, with emphasis on the surrounding world, literature and cinema, "as well as by images more difficult to locate, such as memories, daydreams and nightmares" (Kannisto). She also admits that just being alive, engaging and perceiving life and the things around her, ignites pictures in her head.

Being an artist as just a reaction of life is such a great definition of Artist. I think it's a breakthrough, even.

"I see pictures in my mind, the things I have dealt with come into my dreams and still moments. I cannot stop working as I cannot stop thinking or existing in the world." - Kannisto

Untitled (Translucent Curtain) Aino Kannisto, 2002. C-Print, Diasec, 90 x 113 cm. http://www.m-bochum.de/artist_image.php?aid=66#down.

I really love the softness and romance of her gesture in this above piece, Translucent Curtain.

Untitled (Blue River) Aino Kannisto, 2006. C-Print, Diasec, 90 x 142 cm. http://www.m-bochum.de/artist_image.php?aid=66#down.

Sometimes it's exhausting to find these artists. I find it frustrating that I'm only this age and that I haven't been in the world before now to know about these things before they did. Selfish, yes definitely, but it's true. I find so many similarities in the mindset and influences of these artists that help fuel my creative processes that I feel unoriginal again. But at the same time I feel the need to keep my work personal and quiet and only for myself because that's why I make it in the first place. It's a dilemma for me, but not for Kannisto, who said "Making pictures is for me a way to deal with human emotions. It is also a source of immense creative energy and pleasure – a way to give meaning to life by sharing some part of the world which otherwise remains private."

I hope eventually I share the same joy out of sharing myself and my work in the same way she does.

http://www.m-bochum.de/artist_image.php?aid=66#down.

http://www.women2003.dk/artists.php?id=4